Food labels should include activity icons showing how much exercise is needed to work off the items, based on a report from a British public health organization. They could help grocery store shoppers choose between cookies that would need 10 minutes or 20 minutes of jogging to burn off the calories, for example. These new small pictures would include a variety of different exercises including walking and jogging.
The United Kingdom's Royal Society for Public Health supported such food labels in an opinion article published on April 6, Wednesday in The BMJ. Chief executive Shirley Cramer shared that the proposal is for people to think about how their food is related to everyday activities, and to boost their physical activity.
However, many United States health experts do not think there is enough data about whether the labels can improve people's health, while some believe they could have negative effects.
James F. Sallis is a professor of family and preventative medicine at University of California at San Diego. He thinks the activity icons are a good idea. However, Sallis also believes more evidence is needed before such food labels would be required by law.
Sara Hass is a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietrics. She explains that the concept is a good one in theory because it motivates shoppers to make better choices when grocery shopping by buying foods that are lower in calories and sodium.
However, Hass is also doubtful the activity icons would motivate people to exercise more. People might choose low-calorie foods without thinking about their nutritional value. For example, they might choose a bag of jelly beans over a bowl of cereal or fruit salad based on the calorie count.
Haas argues that a better tool would be the new version of the nutritional facts panel that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is working on, according to CNN. It would include information about healthy and unhealthy ingredients in the food item.
Another new study conducted in in the United Kingdom is testing whether exercise or diet is more effective in improving the heart health of people with type 2 diabetes, according to Diabetes Times. Researchers want to learn whether food or workouts will better improve the pumping function of a diabetes patient's heart.
Here's exercise vs. weight for weight-loss: